Tag Archives: sales

According to figures released by the Central Statistics Office house prices across Ireland rose by an average of 8.1% in the year to February. The latest statistics show that on average house prices have been rising steadily for nine consecutive months and that the average national price rise is the strongest that it has been since before the crash in June 2007. These figures give strength to the belief that the recovery of the Irish housing market is well under-way.

Outside of Dublin house prices across the country rose by 0.9% during the month of February and were up by 4.2% compared with the same month last year. However, the value of property in the capital fell by 0.6% compared to the previous month of January. However, house prices in Dublin still managed to be 13.3% higher than they were in February 2013, making the overall picture a positive one despite this small setback. Equally the progressively rising prices across the rest of the country offer more than a little compensation for an under-performing Dublin.

The feature had up until recently been held solely for some of the larger industry giants and political figures, the advice and blog section of LinkedIn has now been made available for all users to share their advice, opinions and ideas. The news of this was announced in a blog post and was suggested that is to rival Twitter; giving users the potential to publicize their brand through yet another medium, without the 140 character limit.

To give an example of how “exclusive” the influencers blog, released during October 2012 examples of some of the 150 people who used it involve Richard Branson, Bill Gates and Martha Stewart. As of now, 25.000 people will be catered for with this service – a number which will grow over the years.

As of the update, LinkedIn users can follow members outside of their existing network and use the new medium to build a new group of followers. The new medium enables them to also share photos, videos and presentations via SlideShare.

The service was initially launched in October 2012 covering a total of 150 people, but now the service will cater to an initial 25,000 people and will be expanded upon over the coming months and years.

“The valuable Influencer posts and the wide range of professional content from millions of publishers that we currently aggregate on LinkedIn are powerful, but only the tip of the iceberg. Combined, our members have extremely valuable and varied experiences; however, their knowledge and expertise has not yet been captured and shared.” – Ryan Roslansky, head of content development at LinkedIn

A large reasoning for making the influencer’s blog public was to attract a new, teenage, audience.

A second feature recently released by the business social network is the ability to block members from seeing your profile, posts and prevent them from messaging you. However, it is important to take into account other ways of hindering unwanted contact such as changing your security settings and disconnecting from people.

Amazon knows what you want. So well in fact, that they intend to start shipping before you even place your order. In December 2013, the Seattle-based retailer took out a patent on the idea of shipping out goods before an order has even been placed. Items will be shipped based on previous orders, viewing history and other factors.

The idea is to remove the fear of important deliveries arriving late due to being shipped from a distance, encouraging online shopping; specifically from Amazon whilst also discouraging them from visiting physical stores.

This new formula for predicting orders to be placed could significantly reduce delivery time and greatly increase customer satisfaction. In the patent document for this formula, Amazon speaks of the delay between buying and receiving an item online and how it “may dissuade customers from buying items from online merchants”. The patent implies that items could wait to be shipped from the shipper’s trucks or storage hubs.

The patent shows different ways of deciding which items to be shipped to where, using factors from your wish list and search history to your returns and even how long you hover your cursor over products you view. All this is in a direct effort to cut down on delivery needs and to become the leader in a growing trend among businesses; to identify and meet consumer needs before even the consumer themselves do.

Amazon have added next day delivery recently by expanding on their warehouse network and also, in 2013, announced that they would be using unmanned drones to ship out packages in order to decrease delivery time by taking small packages directly from warehouses to the consumer’s door. In the patent, Amazon create the idea of filling out partial addresses or ZIP Codes, and using this to keep the item closer to the potential purchaser, with the rest of the label being filled out in transit.

It is unclear whether or not this new delivery tactic has or will been deployed, as no further comment has been made, but what it does is it shows just one way which Amazon is willing to manipulate their vast knowledge of their customers in order to leap ahead of competition.

However, the algorithms is not without flaws and in times of error the patent states that customers may be given discounts, or even receive the package as a gift in order to build strong customer-client relationships.

What are your thoughts of Amazon’s latest efforts to stay ahead of the competition? Let us know @4pm

Not paying attention to customers opinions of your brand on social media and networking sites? Do so at your own risk!

Recent survey’s have shown that customers appreciate when a brand responds to a negative social media/network post.

However, the results have shown that positive recommendations seem to be influencing the customer more than negative recommendations. Around 25% of people will spend money on a brand because of a positive recommendation seen on social media/networks. Cha-ching!

Worryingly 1 in 8 consumers stop using or purchasing a brand altogether as a result of negative social media/network comments. Uh-oh!

It has been duly noted about the growing importance of online shopping in the life of the consumer. Just under a third of consumers (32%) will purchase/have purchased their shopping online this year. This make’s the overall online shopping experience key to receiving positive recommendations. Santa is never late delivering gifts, neither should you be!

Customer relationship management is a must! Over 50% of consumers feel that a brand should reply directly to someone if they have a problem. “Ask not what you can do for the brand, but what the brand can do for you”#motto.

As previously stated, brands connecting to consumers via social media/networks must LISTEN to their customers. Not responding to a negative social media post is just as bad as your customer service department not picking up the phone.

Brands that do listen to their customers via social media are presented with huge opportunities and the “negatives” should be seen as positives. It gives brands the chance to show how much they truly value their customers.

Remember, one voice/post can make a difference between a cha-ching and an uh-oh!